Regimen
by Element's Sole Protector
Summary: Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight verse. Although Chris Ramirez can't be one type of soldier, he can sure be another... as long as he survives the training.
1. AWOL

It's, uh... been a while, huh?

Yeah. Whoops.

Anyway, it makes zero sense to post a _Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight_ story on AO3 and not cross-post it to where this mini-series got started for me. ^^

* * *

 _Regimen_

* * *

With one last spin kick, Chris Ramirez handily destroyed the last of the panther mirror monsters that had scared off the local residents.

Detransforming in a shower of magenta rings was the work of a few seconds - and with that done, he managed a glance down at his watch and the active timer there.

 _Forty seconds._

He grinned - a new record. He was finally using his time and blows wisely, like he'd been taught in the Marines.

Even so, Chris decided it would be best to retreat for the day; his lungs were already stinging and his breathing came swift and ragged. He could play superhero some more tomorrow.

"Met this week's goal," he muttered, switching the watch out of 'timer mode' and checking his steps too before turning off the display. "Next week's goal: maintain the forty-second victory run. The week after: decrease total time from encounter to victory to thirty seconds..."

He wrote this all down in his training journal, hoisted his bag higher, and left the park.

* * *

Maya texted him as he was throwing his bag over his motorcycle in the parking garage a mile away: _You're in the news again, hero. But all by yourself. Everything okay?_

The concern made him smirk. Count on Maya to still be checking up on him even after he'd joined a team and mostly nixed public brawls with fiends in favor of laying low. He sent her back an "all-clear" text as he swung one leg over his bike, revved the engine and kicked off toward home.

The ride back was smooth. Chris didn't feel like he was being watched (for once) and his phone only buzzed twice. The first time was probably Maya's response, and the second buzz might have been a reminder of the same, but its close timing to the last message made him dread the end of his ride.

 _Easy, soldier. Maybe it's Kit or Len. If Maya can read the paper, so can they._

Then again, they didn't have his phone number yet.

He coasted past sluggish cars and novice bike riders, eventually slipping (mostly) quietly into his apartment's parking lot and shutting his ride off for the night. And his self-control was strong enough that he didn't even slip his phone back out of his pocket until he was locked into his place.

The words on the phone's screen weren't even close to being a friendly inquiry or show of concern.

 _ **You've been AWOL for three months. Marines don't abandon their post, son, and the Ramirezes are Marines.**_

Chris winced at the condemnation - both direct and implied - in those stiff, emotionless words.

But he didn't text his father back.

* * *

The next day was more of the same.

Monsters attacked the local snow cone shop, sending kids scattering and screaming. One unlucky boy almost got kidnapped and redirected to Ventara and Xaviax - only Chris' timely arrival had him rescued and sent home to his panicked mother instead. He grinned when he checked his timer for today's encounter: forty seconds again. He had the method down and he had some consistency - just needed reliability.

Chris stopped by his favorite shop on the way home and got bagels; in the meantime he waved off more of Maya's well-meaning but overly worried texts with inane distracting chatter about the news, good places to grab specialty food, or last night's nail-biting football game.

 _MAYA: While interesting, knowing how the Lynxes did last night doesn't tell me how_ you've _been doing fighting all the you-know-whats alone, Chris_.

He replied cheekily: **I think you can say "Mirror Monsters" without anyone from the NSA or CIA pulling up and dragging either of us away.**

 _MAYA: OMG do not saaaay that, now they're definitely watching! Those monsters aren't the only ones who can disappear people, remember!?_

Chris just leaned against his bike and laughed. He was definitely more of an armed forces fan, but even with all the creepy surveillance and shadow games going on in the "real world, he liked his chances much better against some black suits. At least they were still human.

 _And humans can be monstrous, but mostly, they do good._

Xaviax and his minions were a whole different kettle of fish.

Though... that opinion _did_ waver a bit when he eventually arrived home, an hour after more detours and another round of buzzing from his phone. He'd put off answering, thinking it was Maya making sure no sneaky government agents had snatched him after her last text. It could have been Len or Kit, since he'd finally passed along his number. It could even have been his old boss from the warehouse, with another excuse about why it "wasn't safe" for Chris to come back to work for him.

It was none of those people.

 _ **DAD: Another day you don't show up. You're bringing shame to our family, son.**_

Another well-aimed, mean-spirited jab at the disability he couldn't shake, and the hero's destiny that eluded him.

 _On the other hand... some humans who're supposed to be good can be monstrous, too_.

* * *

 _Wednesday_.

Another day, another round of live practice.

With the middle of the week here, Chris found that his ducks, jabs and punches were now much sharper, more precise and longer-lasting. Like him, his foes now needed more time to recover from the blows he dealt, which leveled the playing field. Once again it took him about forty seconds to deal with mirror monster threats in and around Gramercy Heights and his apartment. Forty seconds _each_ this time, for every group he came across, from the moment he dismounted his bike to the moment the last threat disintegrated before him, not to be seen again.

 _What was that called again?_

 _Oh yeah... 'Vented'._

Chris didn't even flinch when his phone buzzed this day, figuring that there wasn't much worse his father could say to him, and certainly nothing that would make him change his mind and crawl home. But then something - maybe his courage, maybe a hidden masochist streak - made him pull the phone out anyway to confirm the sender.

And - it wasn't his father. It was Len.

 _About time you coughed up your number. I know about your training - it's a good start, but not enough. Meet me tomorrow at five a.m. to fix that._

Hmm.

 _Well,_ Chris thought, _who am I to refuse my commanding officer?_


	2. Dwell Time

Ta-daaa, part two is here.

The beginning text of Chris' letter is from episode 20: _Letter From the Front Line_.

This is the end. Thanks for riding along!

* * *

 _Regimen_

* * *

Len didn't specify _where_ Chris was supposed to meet him, nor did the man really have any frequent haunts besides Kit's apartment and 'wherever mirror monsters might be'. This meant Chris ended up staggering out of his apartment at half past four in the morning and wandering in the direction of Maya's bookstore, hoping for the best.

Fortunately someone caught his shoulder just as he was about to bump into some groggy kid fresh off his night shift.

"Didn't the Marines have you up at the crack of dawn all the time?" Len asked him. He wasn't smiling, but his eyes were definitely amused.

"I had a long night," Chris deflected, feeling safe enough to yawn now that someone had his back in the predawn.

"Well, I hope you at least had breakfast. We're going straight up to my roof and getting started from there."

 _Un_ fortunately, it was not in Len's nature to joke. They retrieved their bikes, and within fifteen minutes had reached the nondescript rooftop of the nearby building Len had long ago claimed as his own practice space.

The only way to dawdle was to throw his pack down and rifle through it for breakfast substitutes, which was exactly what Chris did for as long as he could.

"Quit stalling," Len admonished. He'd already stripped off his shirt and tossed it aside for the duration. "I know you aren't afraid of sparring with me."

"You underestimate how far the legend of your 'training sessions' has spread. - Hey, do you fight Kit when you're shirtless too?"

" _Ha ha_. You'll pay for that."

And Chris did - seconds later he'd been sucker-punched and then tripped so fast he fell hard on his ass.

"Hey!"

Len stepped back, getting into a ready stance. "Don't complain, soldier - get me back."

He got up and dusted himself off, immediately feinting for Len's side and following up with a kick to the midsection. Len blocked the blow but it took some work - enough that Chris was able to attempt a trip-up of his own.

The older Rider barely stumbled. He made two fists and came back for Chris, using his punches and his presence to back him into a corner - be that the rooftop's edge, or the door they had come through earlier. But Chris just focused on his breathing as he ducked and dodged, lunged and twisted, trying to land solid hits and then make those hits _count_ without sapping too much of his strength or making too many unnecessary moves.

His asthma, most constant compatriot and tormentor, required him to take a few steps back to use his inhaler every few times after he pressed an attack, but that too became its own kind of rhythm: _fight, borrow air, borrow strength, press the fight, breathe again_. Len was remarkably kind about fitting himself _in_ to that rhythm too, even though he reminded Chris after every pull of air that his enemies would offer him no such favor.

And after about two times of that generosity, even Len decided that the inhaler was no longer a free action and started making moves to distract or disrupt his efforts to get back to the fight. His hits were brutal: knife hands to the neck, twisting kicks to Chris's knees, arms and legs, and fists that Chris came to dread even when they were feints for worse moves.

Even so, in the stillness of the morning he gave as good as he got. He hadn't trained on the playground, and his blows reflected the past and present of his experience on every kind of battlefield.

Len didn't speak again until Chris had succeeded in delivering a one-two punch that knocked him back way more than a couple of steps - then, he added claps to his words.

"Well done, Chris."

"I should've done better," Chris protested, shaking his head. "I missed your last two openings. Made the fight longer."

"It took you eight minutes to get through my guard, yes. But it took Kit eight days."

"Yeah - well... I might not always have eight minutes."

In the abrupt quiet, the wind whistled as though to admonish the words. Yet Chris, used to being chastised by someone about one thing or another, paid the sudden chill in the air no mind.

From one moment to the next, Len put his stony trainer's mask back on, frowning and beckoning his comrade. "If you won't have eight minutes, then do it in four."

The ex-Marine stepped forward, happy to oblige.

Four minutes later, he'd done midair flips, drop kicks and torso bends along with other more standard military maneuvers, which led to him giving Len a hard collarbone tap that the older man still rubbed at as he praised Chris' form.

"Yep, you're good. There's stuff that was drilled into you that makes our training together much smoother than it would be otherwise. It'll also help you in lasting longer when you transform into Kamen Rider Sting. Now - can you beat me in _two_ minutes?"

He wasn't wheezing - _not quite_ \- but his breathing was still a bit heavier than he liked. "Maybe not right now."

"That's okay. We can sit and rest for a bit. Plan a schedule for future sessions."

"You really want to do this again?" Chris asked. He was stunned by the mix of playfulness and patience that even his old commanders and brothers-in-arms hadn't quite managed to give off.

"Sure I do... if you do."

"Don't worry about _me_!"

Len chuckled.

"How do you do all this, anyway? Fight so flawlessly, train so easily..."

The older man shrugged. "I'm not so great. I had training, just like you."

"Rooftop showdowns?" Chris joked.

"Among other things. On Ventara, once you're selected as a Kamen Rider, your life is the fight. I was trained by my mentor Nolan the same way I'm training you and Kit - but he was worse. Unpredictable. Relentless. Long hours, when you least expected it, _where_ you least expected it. By the time he was done with me, I was a paranoid one-man army - just like the rest."

Chris shivered.

 _It sounds perfect - thrilling and terrible. Like my dad's drills before I left to join the Marines._

Abruptly Len added, "It's not exactly the same, though."

"Hmm?"

"My training. It's what worked for me and the other Ventarans, but... you guys don't need that. Not the brutality of it. Our trainers were cruel to us to make sure protecting everyone for life was what we really wanted - "

"That's horrible!"

"That's what it took to get the best protectors in the world. A lot of kids signed up thinking it'd be a big picnic, you know, hanging out with other people their age, having no parents around to tell them what to do, getting to eat as much as they wanted because they'd burn all the calories out training the next morning... that first week was quite the wake-up call for them. But at the same time, some of my comrades who ended up forming the main team didn't exactly have a choice - they were orphans, or always getting into trouble, and it was be conscripted into protecting Ventara or be locked up. But here... both you _and_ Kit jumped at the chance to be Kamen Riders and protect the Earth, even when you only knew a fraction of what I did going in."

Chris nodded. "It was a no-brainer for me. My - my dad would say, _The call is strong_. He meant the call to serve our country, but to me it meant the call to protect is _always_ strong, no matter who you're shielding. America, the Earth, Ventara... I'd lay down my life for any and all."

Len patted his shoulder. "That's why I'm proud to fight beside you."

The air suddenly got warmer. "Len..."

"It's true. You may drive me crazy sometimes with your pessimistic outlook on your helpfulness in a fight, but there's no one else I'd rather motivate on the battlefield, or off." He got a knowing look in his dark eyes. "Don't let Kamen Rider Strike, or _anyone_ , reduce you to asthma. Fighters just like you lived with asthma in my world. They led armies and fought toe-to-toe with Xaviax's armies and dealt killing blows to our enemies. You're just like them."

Heat was still strong around them, but Chris managed to choke out a thanks as he listened to that and then more fighting tips and tricks from Len.

After a time they got up and sparred again, continuing on until Chris could land a blow on Len in two minutes - then continuing again with different goals, extending the time Chris could last in a fight to ten minutes, then twelve, then fifteen, then eighteen.

Finally Chris shoved Len away, flopping down and befriending his inhaler for not the first time that morning. "Okay... whew... that's enough."

"Not unless I say so," Len warned; but then he smirked. It was one of his rare jokes. "Nah, we're done. Same time and place tomorrow, and the day after, and on and on until you're satisfied with your progress."

Chris glanced over at him, and then at his watch: 7:00 A.M. on the dot. Two-hour training every morning sounded unforgiving and brutal... and also comforting and familiar.

 _And hell, if it turns out I'm too tired to fight for real later, I'll start grabbing a nap._

"Sounds good," he finally replied. "Just so you know though, I don't satisfy easily."

"Good." Len's eyes gleamed. "I like a challenge."

* * *

Late that Thursday night (or early Friday morning, more likely), Chris knew with lightning-bolt clarity that he would never text his father back again.

For now, his family was Len and Kit, and Maya - but that didn't mean he wouldn't try and offer his father an honest explanation for his disappearance. Maybe reading it over his father's shoulder as he inevitably raged would bring his mother some form of peace, too.

 _Yeah. A letter sounds good. Just thoughtful enough._

But it took Chris three more hours, several torn sheets and lots of editing and meditation to start and finish this summary of his new life and his old failures. It was straightforward, stoic and detailed. Hopefully it would be believed. And honestly, hopefully it would never have to be read.

 _Dear Dad,_

 _I know you're probably pretty angry at me right now..._


End file.
